Miami's cat killer

last updated 8 January 2015

"What is it about Florida?" asked Jan Barrett in Blogger News Network . The state generates a seemingly endless stream of frightening headlines about child abductors and murderers. Now 18-year-old Tyler Hayes Weinman of Miami-Dade County was arrested and charged with being a "serial killer" of cats—some of which were skinned, gutted, and left for their owners to find in their yards. Could there be something in the water down there?

The cat killings only grew more mysterious with Tyler Hayes Weinman's arrest, said Jose Pagliery, Andrea Asuaje, and Robert Samuels in The Miami Herald. The suspect "was not the reserved yet rabid killer some expected. He was a dog-loving class clown, a swim class instructor, an 18-year-old who grew up before the eyes of the four-legged victims' families."

Tyler Hayes Weinman might have escaped suspicion, said Tim Elfrink in Miami New Times, had he not hoisted red flags on Facebook and MySpace. Weinman joined the 'Catch the Cat Killer!' group on Facebook, suggesting "that he was certainly aware of all the media hoopla over his alleged crimes—and perhaps enjoying it." And details he shared on the site—including that he split time at the homes of his divorced parents in the two communities where the cats were killed—prompted police to start watching him.